I rock back on the heels of my feet and stare into Sakura's green-gray eyes. Almost immediately she twists around and reaches for the scalpel again. I just watch her, stunned into silence, until she makes another cut near her shoulder, and blood creeps to the surface of her skin. She twists around and grabs something behind her and sprinkles it over the new cut.

"What is that?" I ask, latching onto this new development desperately.

"Sugar to prevent the blood from running," she says, making another sharply curving cut all the way up to the base of her collarbone. As easily as if she were making a brush stroke. As if I'm not sitting a foot away, having a mental breakdown right along with her.

"Alright, that's enough." My hand flashes out and I grab the scalpel out of her hand none too gently. She shrinks back with a pained hiss. "You're going to the hospital. Right now." I say firmly. To hell with the doctors and their diagnosis. I'll make them look at her a hundred more times if that's what it takes to find out what's wrong with this girl.

"What?" she asks, panic coloring her voice. "No, you can't, it's-"

"I could give a shit," I growl, and forcefully gather her in my arms, standing up and turning back towards the balcony. The pink-haired girl thrashes hysterically in my grip, moaning and begging for me to let her go in a manner that reminds me disturbingly of the skeletal nukenin before Sasuke smothered him. I step out onto the balcony, into the midday sunshine.

Sakura shrieks in agony. Her nails claw at my eyes, and while I'm flinching away from them she kicks me in the gut. I stagger to one side, wheezing, and she bursts free from my grip and bolts back into the darkness of her room, taking back the scalpel in the process.

My back hits the balcony and I gape at her shadowed figure. "What is wrong with you?" I gesture wildly into the room. "What about the shadows!? You couldn't even stay outside after sunset yesterday and now you don't care?" She shakes her head and mumbles something, but I can't quite catch it.

I rub at my stomach and creep warily forward again. "What'd you say?"

"It's changing."

My stomach rolls. "It's what?"

"It doesn't need to try to get in anymore," she whispers hollowly. "It's different now."

I can count on one hand the times in my life where I've had no idea what to do. The instant after the old man told me about my defect. The first time I had a crimson dream. The day Sasuke came to me in tears because his father had finally come out and said that he was a disappointment. Everything else, I've always had a solution for. Whether it's a logical solution with a high chance for success or some half-baked plan I came up with on the spot, I've always had something to do.

But now as my teammate carves the symbols to a seal that can't exist into her skin, I realize I have no idea what to do.

"God, Sakura," I finally croak. "You need- You need help. We need to go back to the hospital, or the old man, or..."

"I can't, Naruto." I look up sharply, snapped from my reverie. Not at her words themselves, but how they're said. She sounds terrified- literally insane with fear.

"Why not?"

"Because if I don't do this now, I'll be too late." She sprinkles sugar on her latest cut with a shaking hand. Then she looks up at me with eyes so wide I can see the grays of them. "I can feel it, corrupting things, changing me. If I wait any longer..."

"I thought you said you were just testing it?"

"Testing to make sure my blood wouldn't ruin it. It didn't."

I almost leave right then, hop up onto the balcony and scale the apartment building to flag down a patrol team of medic Anbu. I almost write her hysterics off as just that- hysterics of a disturbed young girl. Irrational fears that are driving her to skip out on her duties as a shinobi to mutilate herself. I come so very close to doing that.

But then I remember the haunted look on Team 9's faces. I remember Tenten herself, obscured by a mountain of blankets and wires and cringing in a constant, unseen agony.

I turn back to my teammate, the bizarre contortions of the blood seal I'd seen while in the hospital burning in my head, and I wonder just what in the hell I'm dealing with here.

I crouch down beside her again. "Do you need my help?" I ask quietly.

She pauses, scalpel poised just above her left shoulder, and nods. "The scroll is on my bed."

I go and grab it off the mess of a bed, finding it neatly rolled up. I hold it up and stare at it. It occurs to me that she hasn't even been looking at it. She's been carving symbols into her head by memory alone. In the world of sealing, those who do that have either committed the components of the seal so thoroughly to memory that they could do it while drunk and half dead, or they have a death wish. I find that both possibilities are equally horrifying.

"What happens if this doesn't work?" I ask. I don't even want to know the answer, not really. All it will do is make me feel even less sure of myself. Because even if it's not serious, how far can I trust her?

The scalpel swirls down her arm. "It wins."

"No pressure, then," I mutter, savagely unfurling the scroll and spreading it out on the floor. Then I pull out my sealing brush and my ink tab and get to work.

I've only ever drawn one sealing circle before. It was a direct copy of the seal decorating my stomach translated onto my hardwood floor to make it easier for me to study and pick apart. Of course I didn't actually do any picking apart, and my studies haven't taken me anywhere since then- no, the important thing I learned from that experience is that sealing circles are stupidly complex.

I sweep my brush across Sakura's pristine white carpet, staining it black with ink, and mentally compare Sakura's creation with the circle I drew years ago. The thing about sealing circles is that everything has to fit together. You can't leave anything hanging and just hope the chain will stop after it's served its purpose. It all has to connect back to the center, to the purpose of the seal. I've looked at plenty of examples in textbooks over the years, but I've never seen a better example of this than my mystery seal.

So as my hand dances haltingly across the carpet I hold the seal up to my memory, and what I find shocks me.

It fits. It all fits. I lean back over the scroll, memorizing another section to trace, and as I do I see once again that it connects to an entirely different branch of symbols, just like the one before it connected to it. I can't vouch for the purpose of the symbols and how they sync together, for obvious reasons, but on the other hand I can't do that with half the subseals on my stomach either. The general shape of it, though... As I piece together more and more of it on the carpet, the deranged mass of nothing slowly coalesces into something that actually works.

After an eternity of unravelling I sit back on my haunches and glare at the scroll, looking it over three times to make sure I haven't missed anything. I don't find anything. Just the two final wavering lines connecting the outer circle to the blood seal portion. I take a deep breath and turn to Sakura.

She stares expectantly back at me, her dress bunched up around her waist, spidery lines of crimson red dancing beneath her collarbone and around the curves of her breasts. I clench my eyes shut and breath again. God damn it, Uzumaki, what are you even doing-

"I'm ready," she says, voice shaking with anticipation. I force myself to move forward.

I make my way carefully into the circle of black ink and draw the first line, connected to one of the hanging restriction subseals. She taps her thigh and I take that as my route to the dangling red line just above her belly button. I connect ink to blood and move onto the second line, shuffling behind her and connecting the second line to a thread of blood on her back.

"There," I rasp. "What now?"

"Get out of the circle." Her voice isn't the only thing that's shaking now. Her body practically vibrates with... I'm not sure what. Eagerness, fear, or simple tension? I get out of the circle. "Now channel chakra into the free hook on the outside of it."

I look down at the lone gash of ink sitting unconnected outside of the circle."That won't work," I say. Doubt begins to gnaw at my determination. How am I supposed to know what this seal will do? What does "I lose" mean? Why didn't I just take her to the hospital? "You can't activate seals with wind chakra."

"Doesn't matter," she says, shaking her head rapidly back and forth. "It only needs the body and the spirit. The chakra doesn't matter. Just channel your chakra."

I sit there for a long moment, just looking at my position. At my situation. I stand up abruptly "Okay, you know what? No." I jab a finger at her. "I don't know why I went along this far with this to begin with, but I'm not going another step until you tell me what the fuck is happening to you. Tell me what "it" is, and tell me how this seal is going to deal with it. And so help me god if you don't I will tie you up and drag you by your hair-"

"Naruto! Please!" Sakura cries in a strangled voice. She stares up at me, her green-gray eyes boring into my own. Her eyes, which are quickly being turned from green-gray to solid, murky gray. Tenten's eyes. It's happening right in front of me.

To construct and utilize a seal that one hasn't learned inside and out or used in the past is more than unwise. It is suicidal.

Oh to hell with this.

I fall into a crouch and slam my hand down on the hook. Chakra surges through me, a familiar giddy presence rushing down my arm and out my hand. The circle hums and the sound of rushing wind fills the air as the seal absorbs my chakra, true to Sakura's word. I don't have time to think about what that could mean before light fills the room and Sakura cries out in pain.

My chakra sets the blood seal glowing a furious crimson, running a blazing path along the symbols until her whole torso is glowing red. I try to jerk my hand back, but the seal holds it in place somehow. It continues to suck greedily at my chakra, and all of a sudden eight points erupt in radiant blue pillars of light. The restriction subseals.

The circle claws at more and more of my chakra. Wind moans through the room, rustling the scroll containing Sakura's outline of the seal and sending it rolling towards the sealing circle. I twist awkwardly and kick it out of the way. The pull grows stronger, and my chakra howls, sending Sakura's long pink hair whipping around. I grit my teeth and yank again at my hand, but it's no good. Then something happens, and I forget all about my hand.

Black ichor is leaking out of my teammate's eyes and down her cheeks, and I can feel it. The day Iruka taught us about chakra sensing immediately jumps to my mind, but I've never had that talent. Something tells me this isn't some hidden talent I've just unlocked- it's whatever that is. It's strong enough that it doesn't matter. It's wrong enough. I shrink back as far away from the seal as my hand will allow me, and then the ichor touches the blood seal.

A sound escapes from Sakura's lips, hardly loud enough to hear over my raging chakra. A cold shiver runs down my spine. It goes so far beyond agonized that it almost hurts me to hear it.

As soon as the ichor touches the cuts Sakura had given herself the crimson glow darkens, becoming a dark, dark gray. The mix spreads further along the seal as more and more ichor runs down into it. A familiar burn begins to build in my stomach, but the seal keeps on pulling, and my hand holds firm. Finally, when the cuts littering her naked torso are nearly all grey, the last drops of ichor fall from Sakura's eyes, and the tear stains on her cheeks melt down into the seal, pulled by some invisible force.
I clench my eyes shut as the eight pillars of light flare, and feel the pull on my chakra cease all at once. I yank my hand back and crack an eye open hesitantly.

Sakura, wavering dangerously from her place kneeling in the circle, gasps raggedly, and the gray seals carved into her flesh move, crawling past her collarbone and up her neck. In their wake once cut skin bubbles and smooths, becoming pale and unmarred. The symbols crawl up her chin and past her cheeks, framing her face for one disturbing moment before gathering at her forehead. I watch as they bunch together, overlap over each other, until finally her skin stops bubbling and the eight pillars of light fade.

Two simple black lines sit starkly contrasting against the pale skin of her forehead, each curling from one temple and meeting in the middle. They intertwine there, then curl around the other to the opposite temple.

"... Is that it?" I whisper into the silence. Sakura's eyes flutter open. Pure grass green.

"Yes," she breathes. "It's gone."

"So you're cured now?" I ask cautiously. She nods.

"It's not-" she says, but mid-sentence her eyes roll up into the back of her head and she collapses face first onto the carpet. I scramble forward and press my finger to her throat, but her pulse thrums steadily beneath her skin. I roll her over onto her back and lift one of her eyelids up, just in case, but they're still green. I sigh, and a weeks worth of anxiety drains out of me along with it.

A gloved hand falls onto my shoulder, gripping it painfully. I twist sharply around and see a shinobi decked out in Anbu attire, mask and all, connected to it. I take a few seconds to consider what this shinobi is thinking right now, with me hunched over a half naked girl in the middle of a sealing circle.

"I can explain-" Well, no I can't. "This isn't what it looks like!"

After a dizzying series of shunshin the Anbu, Hawk, knocks twice at the solid oaken door leading to the Hokage's office. I don't hear anything from inside, but a moment later the Anbu standing guard opens the door and Hawk shoves me in. I stumble inside, looking up and seeing the Hokage regarding me with a flat stare.

"Hey old man," I say weakly. He gestures at the chair across from his desk.

"Sit." I sit. "I've been told that the sixth patrol team felt a large spike in chakra and found you with an unconscious girl in the middle of a sealing circle, with a blood seal etched onto her forehead. Is this true?"

Wow. Anbu work fast. "Well yeah, but when you say it like that-"

"Do you remember what I told you about blood seals?" he commands, not asks. I frown.

"Don't mess with them," I say reluctantly. "You don't understand though-"

"I understand that the chakra team six sensed was not regular chakra. It was elemental in nature." He narrows his eyes. "Do you mean to tell me that it wasn't your chakra they sensed?"

"No, but-"

"Do you realize what the punishment is for using a blood seal without the proper qualifications? A minimum of three months-"

"Damn it old man!" I explode, slamming my fists down on the wooden armrests of my seat. "Listen to me! That wasn't just some girl, that was Sakura. And I didn't create the seal, she did."

"You still helped her perform it. Why?" He counters.

"Because she was going insane!" I say heatedly. "Your stupid medics couldn't find anything wrong with her, but whatever that bastard of a nukenin did to her on our mission has been driving her crazy since we got back to Konoha."

If that takes him back, he doesn't show it. His face just grows harder. "And you decided that using the seal she designed was the best course of action?" I open my mouth, close it, and think.

"Yes."

"Do I have to explain to you why and how monumentally stupid that decision was?" He asks quietly.

"Do I have to explain to you why I made it?" I throw back at him.

"Yes."

So I launch into my long, frustrating recount of my interactions with Sakura from her visit to me at the hospital to a few minutes ago, and everything I've learned about what was happening to her. It isn't much. By the time I'm finished the Hokage look has faded and the old man just looks tired. He leans back in his chair, procuring his pipe from underneath his desk, and takes a few puffs at it.

"You're saying you believed your teammate was going to deteriorate to young Tenten's level?" He finally asks. I nod.

"It's hard to explain. But her eyes kept getting darker, and it reminded me of Tenten. When she told me she was running out of time I kind of panicked." I scratch at the back of my neck. "I just... didn't want the same thing to happen to her, you know?"

The old man's eyes soften. "I think I do."

"And anyway, it worked," I say hastily. "She told me herself. And her eyes were all cleared up, too. I've still got no idea what was happening to her, but whatever it was, it's gone now."

"Not gone," The old man corrects me, giving me a funny look. "Sealed."

I blink. "Is there a difference?"

"Of course there is," he says firmly. "Depending on the nature of the seal she used, it may be required that she renew it after a certain period of time, or it may require a constant effort to keep functioning, or any number of things. Seals are nigh impossible to predict if you don't have any prior knowledge of them- the possibilities are virtually endless."

"Well whatever it requires, I'll make sure it gets done," I say determinedly. "I'm never letting that happen to her again."

The old man smiles. "That's good to hear, Naruto." He takes a few more puffs of his pipe, and raises an eyebrow at me. "So, setting that aside for the moment, where's your progress with that scroll I gave you?"

I pause, thrown by the sudden change in discussion. "Nowhere," I finally say, scowling. "That was a real dick move giving me a technique I need to know shape transformation to learn, old man, even if it's a family jutsu."

"Ah, but when you do learn how to do it you'll have achieved two skills for the price of one," he says sagely.

"You just wanted to watch me suffer on that stupid crystal ball of yours," I say accusingly.

"I get to teach you something worthwhile and watch you squirm," he agrees. "Two satisfactions for the price of one."

"Sometimes I hate you, old man." He smirks and puffs at his pipe some more. "Anyway, are we good? I'd like to go check up on Sakura, seeing as she's half naked and unconscious on her floor right now. Oh, and I'm supposed to check back in with Kakashi at some point too."

"Your teammate has been taken to an emergency care room to have her general well being as well as her seal inspected, and I'm afraid she won't be allowed visitors at all tonight," The old man says. Fair enough, I guess. We did just use an unknown blood seal on her, after all. "You're more than welcome to visit her tomorrow morning, however."

Oh, don't worry about that, old man. I have questions that need answering.

"But yes," he continues. "I'd say you've sufficiently explained yourself. Go on."

"Great." I get up from my seat, head for the door, and stop just short of it. I turn around. "Hey, uh, can you maybe explained what happened to Kakashi instead of me?"

The old man looks at me curiously. "Why?"

"Because if you tell him not to kick my ass for using an unauthorized blood seal, he'll probably listen." He chuckles and nods. "Thanks."

I roofhop my way back to training ground seven, a little bit bouncier and a little bit happier. For the first time since I woke up from my mini coma I'm actually looking forward to going back to work. Sakura isn't descending into madness anymore, I'm cleared for physical training, and Kakashi is going to give my Taijutsu style a makeover-

Alright, I'm not too thrilled about that one just yet, but I could be wrong.

I pass by the hospital, and my smile slips. Not everything is alright- not yet. But maybe when Sakura gets out of emergency care...

Struck by a sudden thought, I veer off my course and double back towards the apartment district where Sakura lives, alighting upon her building quickly and scaling my way back up to the balcony leading into her I step into her room I find the sealing circle has been completely erased and my sealing brush is gone.

And there's no sign of the scroll outlining the seal.

"Oh come on," I growl. I turn to leave, my plan thwarted. Then I remember.

Wind moans through the room, rustling the scroll containing Sakura's outline of the seal and sending it rolling towards the sealing circle. I twist awkwardly and kick it out of the way.

I spin around, surveying the room. It hasn't been that long since Hawk manhandled me to the old man's office, so whoever came through here couldn't have found every little thing in the room. It might still be here somewhere.

I start rooting through the room, checking under and behind furniture, rifling through piles of books and scrolls that have obviously already been checked by the team that erased the circle. Finally I stop in front of a closet door, slightly ajar, and swing it open. The closet is empty save for a pile of clothes, and after an uncomfortable moment of consideration I start sifting through my teammate's underwear.

My hand, jammed up in the corner of the closet, meets paper. "Found you," I say triumphantly, and gently pull the unravelled scroll out from the pile, being careful not to rip it. I'm halfway through rolling it up when a strained female voice cries out somewhere below me.

"I don't care what the Hokage said, you can't just keep her holed up in intensive care without my consent! You haven't even told me what happened to her!" That must be Sakura's mother. That must be Sakura's mother talking to one of the Anbu that just went through this place. A single floor below, while I'm rifling through her daughter's panties. Hum.

I quickly roll the scroll the rest of the way up and shove it in my pants pocket, making for the balcony. I hesitate just before I jump off, glancing back at the door leading out of Sakura's room, then shake my head and leap.

OoOoO

I arrive at training ground seven a few minutes later where Kakashi is reading his orange book again, throwing my chakra at my back and somersaulting half a dozen times out of the trees before landing grandly on my feet. I procure my bill of health with a grin and shove it in his face.

"Aren't we excited," Kakashi says, taking the slip of paper.

I shrug. "Glad to put this restricted training crap behind me."

"Took you awhile in there," he observes, crumpling the paper up and tossing it over his shoulder.

I think about telling him about Sakura right then, remembering the concern he'd shown towards her yesterday. "I-" Ah, it's not worth the beating. He can wait. "I got lost." A half lie. Thankfully he accepts it.

"Well then, it looks like I'm clear to torture you again," he says, visible eye crinkling. "Let's start with the basics."

Tried and true instincts honed through years of dealing with Sasuke's bunshin tactics scream at me to dodge and I comply, diving forward into a roll and stabbing at the Kakashi crouched on a log with a kunai plucked from my weapons pouch. It passes through his chest, and the bunshin fades away. I stare incredulously at the empty air, then quickly spin away as my instincts scream again, just in time for the other Kakashi to slam his foot into the log, shattering it.

"Ma, I liked that log," he says sadly.

"How in the hell were you talking to me if that was a bunshin?" I demand. "They can't make any noise."

"Body Replacement," he says. I realize the trick just before he's enveloped in a cloud of chakra smoke, but my dodge isn't quite quick enough, and his next kick slams into my head, sending me tumbling.

"First things first," he says above me. I roll to my feet, eyeing him warily. "How did you protect yourself from that? I put enough force into that to knock a civilian out easily."

"Pressure burst of chakra," I reply, waiting for the inevitable suckerpunch. He nods in understanding.

"I thought as much. I didn't see your hands, though- where were you channeling your chakra from?"

I cock my head. "... The back of me?" I gesture vaguely at the back of my head and shoulders.

He stares at me unreadably. "Interesting." Without another word he darts forward faster than I can track, procuring a kunai and gripping it backwards. I hastily juke out of the way, just avoiding the dull end of it slamming into my temple. He spins, his free hand lashing out, and I throw an arm up to block. The blow immediately numbs my arm, and I try to jump back and put some space between us, but his leg lashes out and nails me in the stomach, sending me skidding back.

"You didn't have time to think about my attack that time," he says while I gasp for breath. "But you still managed to take the edge off of it. That pressure burst is an instinct."

"Well yeah," I cough. "If I had to think about blocking two different ways I'd never be able to keep up in a fight."

He doesn't have anything to say to that, just surges forward again. A similar exchange occurs, but this time when I block a roundhouse kick aimed at my midsection I follow it up with a blast of wind at his leg that spins him around, leaving his side open. I lunge, fist screaming with wind chakra, and punch him in the ribs. The blow knocks him back, though he makes it look graceful, and I grin.

"Gotcha."

"You preface your attacks with pressure bursts as well," Kakashi says matter-of-factly, and my spirits fall ever so slightly. He meant for me to hit him. "I figured that as well. Is that instinctual too?" I nod. He hums thoughtfully, then points up at the treetops. "Follow me."

He jumps up amidst the branches and I follow after him. We treehop for a while, running to and fro in random directions. After about a minute Kakashi starts mixing things up, doing pivots and flips and all sorts of weird crap, and I do the same. He wants to see how good I am, who am I not to show off a little bit? We're circling back to the clearing when the jounin suddenly plants his feet vertically on the trunk of a tree and pushes off, rocketing back at me with a fist drawn back.

"Dodge!"

I yelp, deliberately missing the next branch I'd been aiming for and dropping. I reach out and grab onto a lower-hanging branch on my way down and swing up and away, alighting on another branch and taking off for the clearing like a bat out of hell. When I make it back, though, I find Kakashi is already there, arms crossed over his chest.

"You can use your wind chakra to reliably augment your jumps and still remain cognisant enough of your surroundings to change things up or react to attacks," he says, tone neutral. I'm not sure if it's praise or not.

"Uh, yeah."

"I have a question for you, Naruto," he says suddenly. I blink.

"Shoot."

"Why do you only attack with pressure bursts?"

I furrow my eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I asked. Why don't you mix in other methods of attacking?"

I straighten up out of my Taijutsu stance, reasonably sure he won't attack me in the middle of answering his question, and think about it. "I guess it's because I don't need to," I eventually say.

"How do you figure?" Kakashi asks, watching me intently.

"Because I just don't," I say uncomfortably. "I started doing it because I couldn't get through Taijutsu practise at the Academy without hurting my hands or my feet. It solved the problem, and I like my fighting style, so I let it be."

"And your other applications for wind chakra? Why haven't you expanded on those?" he asks. I stare at him in confusion.

"I don't understand."

"Why aren't you experimenting with your wind chaka?" he elaborates. "Why is it that you seem to be using the bare minimum of your chakra needed to get by?"

"That's not true," I protest. "Practically my entire Taijutsu style involves wind chakra."

"But it's basic," he stresses. "You use it to make your attacks as strong as someone with regular chakra augmentations. You use it to dull or deflect blows that a person with regular chakra augmentations could take. You use it to perform aerial feats the a person with regular chakra augmentations could do. If you took away the wind chakra and added in regular chakra, nothing would be different. Why is that?"

"I don't know, okay?" I snap. "I use it when I need to, and it works. What's the point of this?"

"The point is that that isn't going to work for you anymore," he says. "You've been adapting your chakra when you have no other option, but as you saw when you fought that nukenin, that isn't enough. Some of your adaptations are frankly incredible, but they still won't let you fight the same way a normal shinobi would."

His words slam into me like a handful of dull kunai, battering me one by one. "What would you do?" I grit between my teeth.

"I would use the gift that I've been given!" he says exasperatedly.

"This isn't a gift," I say incredulously. "Do you know how difficult it was just to get to where I am now? It took me months just to figure out how to treehop while everyone else moved on after the couple weeks. Hell, Sasuke got it on the first day! And you're saying what I've got still isn't good enough. How is that a gift?"

"It isn't good enough because you've stopped using it," he says. "It took you months to learn how to treehop, but just think of how you do it compared to a normal shinobi. They augment their limbs and jump normally. You have to keep up a constant stream of wind to carry you over, and you have to constantly adjust it, all while remaining as aware as someone who was jumping normally. And after all that you managed to perfect your control over it to such a degree that you can perform maneuvers that I've seen some chunin struggle to perform.

"Think about what you could do with that kind of control over wind, Naruto. Think about all the things you could do with it that your teammates couldn't do with their chakra. Think, Naruto."

I stare down at my hands, and send a small burst of chakra through them up at my face, ruffling my hair. "What kinds of things?" I finally ask.

"I wouldn't know- wind isn't my element," Kakashi says. "But I can tell you a few things that I can do with lightning that you can't do with regular chakra. I can paralyze my enemies, or pierce through their defenses. I can enemy technology. I can provide light in a dark environment." He leans back against a log. "You've been thinking about this the wrong way for five years. You've been thinking of it as a curse. You've been trying to become strong in spite of it, instead of because of it."

He... He can't be right, can he? He doesn't have any idea what he's talking about. He's the pinnacle of what a shinobi should be- unreadable, untouchable, and unbelievably strong. He can't possibly understand what it's like to have to approach every single obstacle at a different angle than his peers. He doesn't understand that I've had to come up with every solution myself while he's had them handed down to him by generations of shinobi. He can't.

And yet...

I clench my fists. Since when has that ever stopped me? Since when has something never being done before ever kept me from something? Who says I have to work twice as hard just to do the same thing everyone else does, but worse? Hell, my entire term in the Academy was something that had never been done before. And not only did I do it, I did it better than my classmates. Who says I couldn't do the same for my defect? Who says it has to be a defect? I can make it more. I can make it better.

I can make it my greatest strength if I have to.

"I never thought of it like that," I breath, looking up at Kakashi in amazement. Maybe I'll have to make another revisement while I'm at it- maybe the jounin isn't such a jerk after all.

He tilts his head. "That's what I just said."

Prick.

"Okay, so I need to start using my chakra more," I grumble, mood thoroughly tarnished. The excitement is still bubbling in my gut, though. The promise of new paths to walk, new skills to discover. "What should I start working on first?"

Without another word Kakashi explodes forward off the log, a kunai held reverse in both hands, a maniacal grin curling beneath his mask. "Dodge!"

I trudge into the main entry room of the hospital early the next morning, rubbing at my arm and muttering darkly under my breath. It isn't often that I get hurt badly enough that it doesn't heal up with a night's sleep, but I'm still sporting a few bruises from the hellish regime Kakashi put me through yesterday. I finger the small jar of ointment I picked up on the way over here, resolving to rub myself head to toe with it after I'm done here.

"Hey, can I get the room number for Haruno Sakura?" I ask the lady at the front desk, a blonde-haired girl with a much perkier expression than the one from yesterday. She chirps the floor and room Sakura is being kept in, and I'm off.

On my way up I pass through the hallway where the critical patients are being kept, and slow to a stop in front of Tenten's door. My hand hovers over the door handle for a long, unsure breath. Then I turn it and crack the door open gently. I peek inside.

And I see Lee sitting in a chair next to her bed, grasping one of her hands in his own. He's hunched over, and I can see his shoulders shaking ever so slightly. I watch him, and the pale arm he's clinging to, transfixed. Then a muffled sob drifts through the air, and I silently shut the door.

I arrive at Sakura's room on the fifth floor where they keep the stable patients in need of monitoring, and quietly peek in there. Sakura is the only one in the room, propped up against a couple pillows and facing away from me, staring out the window at the far side of the room. I nudge the door open and slink in, but she hears me anyway, turning sharply.

"Oh, Naruto," she says in surprise. "What are you doing here so early?"

"I didn't sleep well," I say sheepishly, shutting the door and leaning back against it. "Couldn't find a good spot to sleep on after Kakashi was done with me." She smiles at that, and I can't begin to explain how good it feels to see her do it. "What about you?"

She shrugs, scratching at her arm. "I had a lot on my mind."

"Me too, actually." Now that I don't have to worry about my disturbed teammate losing her mind anymore, I'd started to turn back to the issues I'd been neglecting since I woke up. Issues like learning the Heavenly Chains, and figuring out what the seal on my stomach is for, and Kazu. Especially Kazu. "Have they just had you laying in bed the whole time?" She doesn't respond. "Sakura?"

"Oh, ah, no," she says. "They asked me a few questions when I first woke up, mostly about the seal and my mindset. Mostly making sure I wasn't already insane, I think."

"Yeah, about that." Beautiful segue, Uzumaki. "I kind of let it hang yesterday at your apartment, but I still want some answers." She sighs, turning back to look at the window, and the sun rising on the other side of it.

"I don't have much to say," she says nervously.

"Don't even try," I warn. "After all that crap with the seal, you owe me."

"No, I don't mean it like that," she says hastily, looking back at me earnestly. "It's just that the whole point of the seal-" She shakes her head. "Okay, I'll start at the beginning. Do you know what happened on our mission?"

"Sasuke told me," I say, nodding.

"Good. I'd rather not have to go through that in detail again." She scratches a little harder at her arm, then abruptly bunches her hands up in the sheer white fabric of her blanket. "I guess he told you it was a genjutsu?"

"Yup. I told him that you said it wasn't though, so we figured it had to be some nasty jutsu."

"I'm still not entirely sure what it was," she says. "But I know that what that nukenin showed me wasn't the product of any sort of jutsu."

I process that. "I'm sorry, what?"

"It wasn't a genjutsu or a ninjutsu because there's no such thing as a jutsu that drives the creator insane." She shudders. "What he showed me wasn't anything he created, Naruto. It was a memory."

The same instincts that had guided me through Kakashi's training session yesterday scream at me that what my teammate just said doesn't make any sense, that it can't make any sense. I move away from the door and fall into a seat by her bedside, staring at her intensely.

"What was the memory of?"

"I can't remember," she says immediately.

"Sakura, I swear to god-"

"I'm serious," she insists. "That was the whole point of the seal. I needed to lock it away. It was... doing things to me."

"This is ridiculous, Sakura," I say heatedly. "Why would that nukenin even want to give you his memory? He had you subdued, if he wanted to drive you insane or whatever all he had to do was use a normal jutsu."

"I don't think he wanted me to have it," she says, clenching her eyes shut. "He wanted to get rid of it."

There was blood on her cheeks too when I checked her, but I couldn't wake her up. I think whatever he was trying to do to Sakura, he did to her first...

"He gave Tenten the memory first," I say in realization, and all of a sudden it begins to make sense. "But he was just making copies. When giving it to Tenten didn't get rid of it for him, he tried it on you. But Sasuke stopped him before he could give you the whole thing." That's why she lasted longer than Tenten.

She doesn't say anything, just nods. I lean forward. "And that seal got rid of everything?"

She hesitates a beat. "Yes."

My expression hardens. "Don't leave me in the dark, Sakura." She looks down at her hands.

"It was supposed to all be sealed away," she says in a small voice. "But I can still remember..."

"Yeah?" I say encouragingly.

She exhales slowly, shakily. "Tails."

"... Tails." I repeat flatly. She nods meekly. "Do- Can you remember how many there were? What they looked like, maybe?" Whether or not they were the size of the Hokage Tower and connected to a force of nature?

She winces. "I'm sorry."

"You're sure you can't remember anything else?" I press. "Even the smallest-"

"Naruto," she cuts me off, her voice strained. She reaches up and presses against her temples. "Stop, please." I practically jump out of my seat in my alarm, hesitantly placing a hand on her shoulder.

"What's the matter? What happened?" I ask quickly. She shakes her head, pressing until her hands start to shake. After a solid minute of me hovering over her while she abuses her temples her arms drop back to the blanket and she looks up at me apologetically.

"Sorry. It's just that asking those questions- the seal was beginning to break down. It's meant to keep the memory walled off, but if I try hard enough it won't be able to stop me from remembering." She shakes her head. "Can we just not talk about it anymore?"

I stare at her incredulously. "You can't be serious. You want to drop it?"

"It won't do us any good now. I'm fine now. It's done. Please, Naruto," she implores me. She looks at me with wide, pleading, near panicked grass green eyes. I look away uncomfortably, wondering if I should open the window to get rid of the sudden heat in the room.

"If it's really hurting you," I say reluctantly. "Sure. We'll drop it."

"Thank you," she says, smiling gratefully.

"Yeah, no problem." After that not much of importance happens. We talk about what she missed with training, my woes with shape transformation, and some other easy topics. Eventually I leave for training ground seven with a promise to visit her again before she's released.

I walk out of her room and down the hall, the scroll containing the outline to her seal bouncing rhythmically in my pocket.